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The thing with HN is that there are a lot of interesting threads that get increasingly drowned in "drama" contents: stuff about politics, the NSA, silicon valle

by simias 13y ago

The thing with HN is that there are a lot of interesting threads that get increasingly drowned in "drama" contents: stuff about politics, the NSA, silicon valley drama... See the G+ outrage lately: there are three articles about that at the top of the frontpage that say exactly the same thing with exactly the same comments. It's reddit/4chan tier "pitchforking". The problem seems to be that the community is growing quickly and as a consequence the upvoted articles are those who cater to the lowest common denominator and it keeps getting lower. It's a problem all successful communities face. The usual solution might be to migrate towards a smaller community as you propose, but the problem then is that you have to rebuild everything from scratch over and over again. IMO a simpler solution would be to make a "meta-HN" which would just add an other layer of moderation on top of the existing HN: - Remove all "drama/politics" entries - Merge entries about the same topic under a single item. Then just link to the usual HN comment threads. I find the quality of comments usually reflects the quality of the article so I think it would work well for me. No need to rebuild everything from scratch and rebuild the community. The HN you once liked is still there, it's just getting increasingly buried it low-relevance contents.

jpalomaki 13y ago
I think you proposal is good. One option would be to give out some of the data that is behind HN, namely the information about who has upvoted which article. This should make it possible to create mashup which would try to learn whose thoughts about interesting arcticles match mine. (No need to disclose the actual usernames, some anonymous identifier would be enough)
ollysb 13y ago
I like the idea of having a single thread for all related stories. That way if a particular story was generating a lot of noise it would just be one line on the front page and very easy to ignore. It would be a bit like subreddits but more dynamic, the subreddits would flit in and out of existence. Everone would still share the same front page, perhaps each line would be something like "NSA: latest story headline". The question is, what would be the best way to do the grouping?
gabemart 13y ago
Alternatively, only activate voting on comments when new users reach a certain karma threshold (does this exist already?), and only activate voting on stories when users reach a certain higher karma threshold.
- tylerdavis 13y ago
  Stack Exchange does this.
- wavesounds 13y ago
  You need 500 pts to vote on HN
  - tfigment 13y ago
    I only have 63 points and I can vote (but rarely do). Actually I can only upvote. I think 500 is for downvote rights.
    - wavesounds 13y ago
      You're right my bad. 500pts to downvote
      - pavedwalden 13y ago
        I wonder if that asymmetry is part of the problem. There's a large population of users who can push junk to the top of the page, and a much smaller population with the ability to downvote it.
        rosser 13y ago
        You can't downvote submissions; you can only flag them.
- shawnreilly 13y ago
  Another thing to consider is what constitutes a karma point. I don't have any statistics to validate, but it seems that posting new submissions rewards more karma points than responding to submissions. Maybe the Admins/Mods could run some stats and see if this is true or not. While I do not personally care about karma points (I'm here because I actually enjoy the community), basing the ability to vote (as in, influence the ranking of what is presented) on a single metric that does not differentiate between submissions and comments likely results in a skewed representation of the community. To put it simply, if you want lots of karma points, don't bother responding to submissions (presumably in an attempt to help someone with a problem, or contribute to the conversation). Instead just find some "hot" controversial articles on some other tech related news sites and submit them instead. If this is true, then it should not be surprising that there is more "white noise" here at HackerNews, as this approach facilitates submitting stories instead of contributing to conversations. My recommendation (if anyone cares), break karma points up into two separate values, one related to submitting articles/stories (which is valuable), and another related to submitting comments (which is also valuable). Then I would remove any reference of points from the system (make them hidden from users) as to remove any desire to "game the system" for points. This would result in a system where points do not influence how people contribute to the community.
dredmorbius 13y ago
there are three articles about that at the top of the frontpage that say exactly the same thing with exactly the same comments. Worse, two were based on the same guy at G+ raving about the whole thing.[1] I'm a little curious about how the stories hit the front page and have stayed up so long. I don't know if it's fully organic, if Google's reputation has really suffered that much, if it's specific to the HN community, or if someone at WaggEd[2] woke up Saturday morning, glanced at HN's submission queue, and decided they needed some nudging. Or Apple, or Oracle, or Facebook, or even some of the privacy rights groups (though Google's slightly late-to-the-game but strident opposition to NSA/PRISM surveillance seems commendable). But by HN's metric of what's worthy of consideration[3], the story seems to resonate. And I have to say for myself, having worked in the tech field for a few decades and watched data, surveillance, and analytic capabilities mushroom, I think it's a damned good thing for people to be questioning. That said: I'm partial to Reddit myself, if you find the right subs. And if you're into the whole drama thing, their personal information policy ain't bad either. _______________________________ Notes: 1. I happen to be that guy. And I'm pretty much just as amazed as anyone. 2. Microsoft's PR firm. Or whomever they use for online reputation management. 3. That being: stuff which makes the front page.
- isaacdl 13y ago
  What are some of the good subreddits that would appeal to an HN audience?
  - Kluny 13y ago
    Used to be /r/programming... not anymore though. Just go to techcrunch and wired.com, that way you'll see everything that makes it to proggit - but only once, instead of every day for a week. The more specific the better, provided there's a lot of subscribers and there's regular new developments in the topic of interest. So /r/doctorwho sucks pretty hard when the show isn't in season. There's a lot of crocheted figurines, etc, it's painful. /r/bicycling, /r/motorcycles and /r/autos are all great, but /r/justrolledintotheshop is brilliant because of how specific it is and how there's always new content - ie. picutres of idiotic things customers bring to their mechanics. /r/scooters is not great because the community is too small. The subreddit for my phone is of interest. Programming languages that I'm trying to learn - Python, Scala. Skills I'm interested in - welding, CNC machinery. Well, that's a good start if you're into things on wheels and programming, anyway.
Noxchi 13y ago
> It's a problem all successful communities face No it's not. It's a problem all large and free communities face. Try looking for private communities, and the quality is much higher. To get into these types of communities, you have to pass an interview or maybe pay monthly (I don't belong to these types, but I've heard good stuff about their quality). e.g. want a good business community? Maybe have a fee for $100/month, so you have people who can afford that join. want a good programming community? Maybe have open source contribution requirements. Or just interviews in general will filter out a lot of crappy users.
- abraham 13y ago
  I've been apart of some small, free, private communities that have had similar problems. It's just less noticeable because it's easier for mods to keep a handle on it in smaller numbers.
- DavidWanjiru 13y ago
  How does the ability to pay indicate ability to make worthwhile contributions? Or, how does inability/unwillingness to pay or prove yourself in some other way relate to an inability to make worthwhile contributions? (quality of posts, comments, etc)
  - Noxchi 13y ago
    >How does the ability to pay indicate ability to make worthwhile contributions? If you can pay something that's related to the niche, it shows you have expertise in the niche. For example, if you can pay $100/month for a business forum, than that shows you are at least somewhat serious and interested in business, and more likely, you are already successful at it. If you can pay via open source contributions to the OS community, and that's a requirement for a software community, it shows at least you can code decently. It doesn't have to be a "Do X" type of test either, it can just be an interview to hear their experience, their attitude, etc.. >Or, how does inability/unwillingness to pay or prove yourself in some other way relate to an inability to make worthwhile contributions? You design a test to filter out people that you don't want in your community. If people fail that test, then it should already signal an inability to make worthwhile contributions. It might give false negatives for users that would have been good, but the test should not give too many false negatives.
aparticulate 13y ago
Do posts like "I'm leaving Hacker News" count as drama content?
- wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
  I understand this was facetious, but it's not a bad question. How do you implement something like that while circumventing user posts?
twotwotwo 13y ago
Since technical solutions to things are always fun, a recommendation system could be awesome: look at your upvotes and activity, cluster you with folks who vote similarly, then show you links based on neighbors' votes. There are refinements (maybe there could be other signals--domains, user-added post tags, etc.) but even a basic try at it has the potential to make everybody happier. I love posts about algorithms and anything about Go or Python 'cause I use those; people's snazzy tech demos are always cool; startup/career stuff can be fine but isn't super relevant to me. It's just weird that to get to the bits I like I load a page that also has a lot of strident arguments about the things I shouldn't or must do, the things people are quitting, the things folks are mad at each other over, etc.
- sebastianconcpt 13y ago
  You described an implementation of the Confirmation Bias :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
  - twotwotwo 13y ago
    Well, any community that tries to show people what they want does that, including HN as it stands now; it doesn't mean you abandon the goal of getting people content they want. It's still an interesting problem, though. You might help address it with distinct kinds of vote (relevant vs. agree), or a randomized rather than static list to show people some things outside their filter bubble, a change folks have already proposed for other reasons (it would spread some votes to things off the homepage). I'm not sure even the naïve implementation would be so bad, though. Things from HN that have actually improved my life haven't really had a component of agreement/disagreement; often they were, e.g., tips or new things to play with or interesting CS or math.
wellboy 13y ago
Isn't it essential that a monumental topic blows up a community? Isn't this one of the most important purposes of a community, the ability to kick off a movement?
wavesounds 13y ago
HN should require you solve some form of fizzbuzz to get voting/posting rights
- chronic25 13y ago
  No. Why on earth would they do this?
- WiseWeasel 13y ago
  Not a bad idea at first glance, until you consider the poor guy or gal whose job it is to review them, not to mention the need to prevent people from copy/pasting the answer from a search result. I guess you would have to have a karma threshold before being offered a chance to solve fizzbuzz, in order to keep the volume manageable. For the second issue, you would probably need to do it in person at your local HN branch office and hope your reviewer knows your preferred programming language. That's not even getting into the discussion of whether programming knowledge is the only field of value for contributors to HN. That said, it would be interesting if people had to put an answer to fizzbuzz in an area of their profile once they hit the karma threshold in order to get voting rights, (can't be null) and then peers could vote/comment on the answer.
brymaster 13y ago
Ugh. These meta-HN topics about the "quality" of the discussion come up every six months or so, even dating all the way back to the beginning. Cut it out already. > Poll: How do you feel about making HN invite only? (5 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373789 > Ask HN: Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? (4 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 > Why people complain about the quality of Hacker News (4 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777813 > Ask HN: (Yet Another) HN Comment Quality Going Down? (3 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198041 > Hacker News Needs Honeypots (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166209 Edit: The moderation on this site is as iron-fisted as ever. The problem here is perception.
- pavedwalden 13y ago
  Just because something gets talked about a lot doesn't mean it's not worth trying to find a solution.
  - brymaster 13y ago
    Just because something gets talked about a lot doesn't mean there's a real issue. The problem is with perception and it's not the reality. Looking forward to a dataset to show me otherwise. One that clearly defines the subjective nature of "quality" and "degradation" of comments.
b0rsuk 13y ago
I think HackerNews (and similar sites) would greatly benefit from having submissions grouped by a moderator. Don't display all submissions about NSA or Steve Jobs as separate lines. Display them as a thread, with some general information like "6 submissions, tags: Steve Jobs is still dead, average karma: 703" from itertools import groupby better_hn = sorted(hn, key=topic) better_hn = [topic, len(list(submissions)) for topic, submissions in groupby(better_hn)] for line in better_hn: print(line)

by simias 13y ago

jpalomaki 13y ago

I think you proposal is good. One option would be to give out some of the data that is behind HN, namely the information about who has upvoted which article. This should make it possible to create mashup which would try to learn whose thoughts about interesting arcticles match mine. (No need to disclose the actual usernames, some anonymous identifier would be enough)

ollysb 13y ago

I like the idea of having a single thread for all related stories. That way if a particular story was generating a lot of noise it would just be one line on the front page and very easy to ignore. It would be a bit like subreddits but more dynamic, the subreddits would flit in and out of existence. Everone would still share the same front page, perhaps each line would be something like "NSA: latest story headline". The question is, what would be the best way to do the grouping?

gabemart 13y ago

Alternatively, only activate voting on comments when new users reach a certain karma threshold (does this exist already?), and only activate voting on stories when users reach a certain higher karma threshold.

tylerdavis 13y ago
Stack Exchange does this.
wavesounds 13y ago
You need 500 pts to vote on HN
- tfigment 13y ago
  I only have 63 points and I can vote (but rarely do). Actually I can only upvote. I think 500 is for downvote rights.
  - wavesounds 13y ago
    You're right my bad. 500pts to downvote
    - pavedwalden 13y ago
      I wonder if that asymmetry is part of the problem. There's a large population of users who can push junk to the top of the page, and a much smaller population with the ability to downvote it.
      - rosser 13y ago
        You can't downvote submissions; you can only flag them.
shawnreilly 13y ago
Another thing to consider is what constitutes a karma point. I don't have any statistics to validate, but it seems that posting new submissions rewards more karma points than responding to submissions. Maybe the Admins/Mods could run some stats and see if this is true or not. While I do not personally care about karma points (I'm here because I actually enjoy the community), basing the ability to vote (as in, influence the ranking of what is presented) on a single metric that does not differentiate between submissions and comments likely results in a skewed representation of the community. To put it simply, if you want lots of karma points, don't bother responding to submissions (presumably in an attempt to help someone with a problem, or contribute to the conversation). Instead just find some "hot" controversial articles on some other tech related news sites and submit them instead. If this is true, then it should not be surprising that there is more "white noise" here at HackerNews, as this approach facilitates submitting stories instead of contributing to conversations. My recommendation (if anyone cares), break karma points up into two separate values, one related to submitting articles/stories (which is valuable), and another related to submitting comments (which is also valuable). Then I would remove any reference of points from the system (make them hidden from users) as to remove any desire to "game the system" for points. This would result in a system where points do not influence how people contribute to the community.

dredmorbius 13y ago

there are three articles about that at the top of the frontpage that say exactly the same thing with exactly the same comments. Worse, two were based on the same guy at G+ raving about the whole thing.[1] I'm a little curious about how the stories hit the front page and have stayed up so long. I don't know if it's fully organic, if Google's reputation has really suffered that much, if it's specific to the HN community, or if someone at WaggEd[2] woke up Saturday morning, glanced at HN's submission queue, and decided they needed some nudging. Or Apple, or Oracle, or Facebook, or even some of the privacy rights groups (though Google's slightly late-to-the-game but strident opposition to NSA/PRISM surveillance seems commendable). But by HN's metric of what's worthy of consideration[3], the story seems to resonate. And I have to say for myself, having worked in the tech field for a few decades and watched data, surveillance, and analytic capabilities mushroom, I think it's a damned good thing for people to be questioning. That said: I'm partial to Reddit myself, if you find the right subs. And if you're into the whole drama thing, their personal information policy ain't bad either. _______________________________ Notes: 1. I happen to be that guy. And I'm pretty much just as amazed as anyone. 2. Microsoft's PR firm. Or whomever they use for online reputation management. 3. That being: stuff which makes the front page.

isaacdl 13y ago
What are some of the good subreddits that would appeal to an HN audience?
- Kluny 13y ago
  Used to be /r/programming... not anymore though. Just go to techcrunch and wired.com, that way you'll see everything that makes it to proggit - but only once, instead of every day for a week. The more specific the better, provided there's a lot of subscribers and there's regular new developments in the topic of interest. So /r/doctorwho sucks pretty hard when the show isn't in season. There's a lot of crocheted figurines, etc, it's painful. /r/bicycling, /r/motorcycles and /r/autos are all great, but /r/justrolledintotheshop is brilliant because of how specific it is and how there's always new content - ie. picutres of idiotic things customers bring to their mechanics. /r/scooters is not great because the community is too small. The subreddit for my phone is of interest. Programming languages that I'm trying to learn - Python, Scala. Skills I'm interested in - welding, CNC machinery. Well, that's a good start if you're into things on wheels and programming, anyway.

Noxchi 13y ago

> It's a problem all successful communities face No it's not. It's a problem all large and free communities face. Try looking for private communities, and the quality is much higher. To get into these types of communities, you have to pass an interview or maybe pay monthly (I don't belong to these types, but I've heard good stuff about their quality). e.g. want a good business community? Maybe have a fee for $100/month, so you have people who can afford that join. want a good programming community? Maybe have open source contribution requirements. Or just interviews in general will filter out a lot of crappy users.

abraham 13y ago
I've been apart of some small, free, private communities that have had similar problems. It's just less noticeable because it's easier for mods to keep a handle on it in smaller numbers.
DavidWanjiru 13y ago
How does the ability to pay indicate ability to make worthwhile contributions? Or, how does inability/unwillingness to pay or prove yourself in some other way relate to an inability to make worthwhile contributions? (quality of posts, comments, etc)
- Noxchi 13y ago
  >How does the ability to pay indicate ability to make worthwhile contributions? If you can pay something that's related to the niche, it shows you have expertise in the niche. For example, if you can pay $100/month for a business forum, than that shows you are at least somewhat serious and interested in business, and more likely, you are already successful at it. If you can pay via open source contributions to the OS community, and that's a requirement for a software community, it shows at least you can code decently. It doesn't have to be a "Do X" type of test either, it can just be an interview to hear their experience, their attitude, etc.. >Or, how does inability/unwillingness to pay or prove yourself in some other way relate to an inability to make worthwhile contributions? You design a test to filter out people that you don't want in your community. If people fail that test, then it should already signal an inability to make worthwhile contributions. It might give false negatives for users that would have been good, but the test should not give too many false negatives.

aparticulate 13y ago

Do posts like "I'm leaving Hacker News" count as drama content?

wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
I understand this was facetious, but it's not a bad question. How do you implement something like that while circumventing user posts?

twotwotwo 13y ago

Since technical solutions to things are always fun, a recommendation system could be awesome: look at your upvotes and activity, cluster you with folks who vote similarly, then show you links based on neighbors' votes. There are refinements (maybe there could be other signals--domains, user-added post tags, etc.) but even a basic try at it has the potential to make everybody happier. I love posts about algorithms and anything about Go or Python 'cause I use those; people's snazzy tech demos are always cool; startup/career stuff can be fine but isn't super relevant to me. It's just weird that to get to the bits I like I load a page that also has a lot of strident arguments about the things I shouldn't or must do, the things people are quitting, the things folks are mad at each other over, etc.

sebastianconcpt 13y ago
You described an implementation of the Confirmation Bias :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
- twotwotwo 13y ago
  Well, any community that tries to show people what they want does that, including HN as it stands now; it doesn't mean you abandon the goal of getting people content they want. It's still an interesting problem, though. You might help address it with distinct kinds of vote (relevant vs. agree), or a randomized rather than static list to show people some things outside their filter bubble, a change folks have already proposed for other reasons (it would spread some votes to things off the homepage). I'm not sure even the naïve implementation would be so bad, though. Things from HN that have actually improved my life haven't really had a component of agreement/disagreement; often they were, e.g., tips or new things to play with or interesting CS or math.

wellboy 13y ago

Isn't it essential that a monumental topic blows up a community? Isn't this one of the most important purposes of a community, the ability to kick off a movement?

wavesounds 13y ago

HN should require you solve some form of fizzbuzz to get voting/posting rights

chronic25 13y ago
No. Why on earth would they do this?
WiseWeasel 13y ago
Not a bad idea at first glance, until you consider the poor guy or gal whose job it is to review them, not to mention the need to prevent people from copy/pasting the answer from a search result. I guess you would have to have a karma threshold before being offered a chance to solve fizzbuzz, in order to keep the volume manageable. For the second issue, you would probably need to do it in person at your local HN branch office and hope your reviewer knows your preferred programming language. That's not even getting into the discussion of whether programming knowledge is the only field of value for contributors to HN. That said, it would be interesting if people had to put an answer to fizzbuzz in an area of their profile once they hit the karma threshold in order to get voting rights, (can't be null) and then peers could vote/comment on the answer.

brymaster 13y ago

Ugh. These meta-HN topics about the "quality" of the discussion come up every six months or so, even dating all the way back to the beginning. Cut it out already. > Poll: How do you feel about making HN invite only? (5 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373789 > Ask HN: Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? (4 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604 > Why people complain about the quality of Hacker News (4 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777813 > Ask HN: (Yet Another) HN Comment Quality Going Down? (3 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1198041 > Hacker News Needs Honeypots (2 years ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166209 Edit: The moderation on this site is as iron-fisted as ever. The problem here is perception.

pavedwalden 13y ago
Just because something gets talked about a lot doesn't mean it's not worth trying to find a solution.
- brymaster 13y ago
  Just because something gets talked about a lot doesn't mean there's a real issue. The problem is with perception and it's not the reality. Looking forward to a dataset to show me otherwise. One that clearly defines the subjective nature of "quality" and "degradation" of comments.

b0rsuk 13y ago

I think HackerNews (and similar sites) would greatly benefit from having submissions grouped by a moderator. Don't display all submissions about NSA or Steve Jobs as separate lines. Display them as a thread, with some general information like "6 submissions, tags: Steve Jobs is still dead, average karma: 703" from itertools import groupby better_hn = sorted(hn, key=topic) better_hn = [topic, len(list(submissions)) for topic, submissions in groupby(better_hn)] for line in better_hn: print(line)